Economic plans don’t enact themselves

Business leaders in Oregon have come up with a thick report of recommendations for revitalizing the state’s economy for the next 10 years, called "Stepping Up: A Plan for Growing Quality Jobs and Statewide Prosperity."

Yippee.

By:
Bill Virgin
Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Oh sorry, was that too negative? What I meant was, what a progressive and dynamic bunch those go-getters down in the Beaver State are, and goshdarn it, why aren’t we doing something like that here in Washington?

Except we are. We’ve got tax study commissions and task forces and competitiveness councils and a new economic-development commission.

In fact, lots of states have ’em. Proclaiming that "this time we’re really going to get serious about economic development" is one of the favorite sports of governors and legislators and business groups everywhere. The reports are released with great fanfare, only to be quickly forgotten long before the next revival of enthusiasm for the topic.

You may call that view cynical. I call it experience.

It’s experience that comes from covering these fits of fascination with the economic climate over the years — and witnessing how much really happens once the fervor wears off.

They were writing economic-revitalization reports in West Virginia in the 1970s and ’80s when I worked there as a business reporter and editor. One of the first stories I worked on when arriving in Washington was the development of a two-volume report on Washington’s economy, "Washington Works Worldwide." Issued in 1988, the study had as its modest agenda an economic-development plan for the next 20 years (heck, those pikers in Oregon only dared to look 10 years into the future).

Now it’s Oregon’s turn to go through this exercise. To launch "Stepping Up," organizers held an economic summit in Portland on Monday that, according to an Associated Press report, was attended by more than 1,300 people.

Oregon had the bigger crowd, but Washington got to the idea first. Gov. Gary Locke unveiled his economic-development plan at the Governor’s Economic Development Conference in Spokane in September.

Now there’s nothing wrong with doing economic planning, particularly when Washington and Oregon are vying for the highest unemployment rates in the country.

Nor is there anything wrong with repeating the planning exercise. Times change, economic conditions change, the industries that drive regional economies change. What might have made sense in a plan written in 1988 might be an obsolete course of action in 2002.

The problem is not with the plans themselves — it’s what happens to those plans after the rallies and speeches.

It’s a problem of political will and execution — or lack of same.

West Virginia was certainly talking a big game about economic development in the mid-1980s when state leaders fretted about jobs lost to other states and what was viewed as a wretched business climate, and something called the Governor’s Management Task Force (funny how these all start to sound the same) cited the need for a comprehensive economic-development policy. More than 15 years later, they’re still fretting about what’s seen as a lousy business climate, not to mention massive state budget problems.

Washington in the late 1980s was talking about economic development. But as a recent Washington Roundtable report notes, "Washington Works Worldwide" "generated initial enthusiasm but resulted in little change." Not that it mattered much — thanks to The Boeing Co. and technology and in-migration, having a plan that no one read worked about as well as having no plan — in the Puget Sound region, at least.

The Oregon plan has as its goal "growing well-paying jobs that go to Oregonians." Without a dedication to developing businesses "that lead their industries in ideas, innovation and design, market reach and staying power," the state could become "strictly a regional consumer market and a branch-office outpost for industries whose key ideas, research, decisions, innovations and initiatives occur elsewhere. It becomes a commodity producer whose industries pay average or low wages and are always vulnerable to cheaper sources of labor and supply elsewhere."

To prevent that unhappy occurrence, Oregon’s plan includes recommendations to fix such state fiscal problems as the public-employee retirement system, overhaul the tax system (enacting a sales tax because, get this, Washingtonians, the income tax is too volatile a revenue source), spend more on all levels of education, streamline permitting and improve roads (the full report is at http://www.oregonbusinessplan.org).

Great ideas, many of which you’ve read a hundred times before. In fact, you or I could write an equally coherent plan given a blank legal pad and an hour or two.

But could we get it enacted? No.

Could the political leaders? Yes. Do they want to? Maybe.

Oregon Gov.-elect Ted Kulongoski thinks he can and wants to. As one of the conveners of the economic summit, Kulongoski said he’ll do his part by starting with a $15 billion gap in the public-employee retirement system. According to the AP account of his remarks, the incoming guv said: "This much I can tell you for certain — the Legislature will not go home until we reach agreement" about the system.

Imagine how much more effective that pledge will be if Kulongoski greets legislators with a specific plan and an "enact it or else" threat.

Imagine how effective a governor of Washington might be if he greeted returning legislators next month with a specific plan about education or taxes or highways and said, "You’re not seeing Olympia in your rear-view mirror until you give me what I want."

Or if Locke doesn’t want to do it, what about a Senate president or House speaker? More than one president or governor has been shoved to the sidelines by a legislative leader with a definite agenda, a lot of power and a willingness to use one to push the other.

Without that sort of commitment, Oregon’s plan or Washington’s plan or any other state’s plan is wasted paper and squandered time. That’s a harsh judgment, but true. These plans don’t enact themselves. Someone has to take responsibility.

Writing reports and holding economic-development revivals can be fun and attention-getting, maybe even necessary. But as Kulongoski is about to find out, and as Locke can probably tell him, those are also the easy parts.